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Nov 12, 2025 By Caleb Campbell

Vancouver-based grunge pop outfit Buddie returned last week with their third full-length album, Glass. The release follows their 2023 sophomore album, Agitator, and their 2020 debut, Diving, which saw the band, led by singer/songwriter Dan Forrest, cement a style equally steeped in grunge fuzz and pop hooks. On those records, Buddie quickly developed a penchant for pairing wiry guitar lines and earworm melodies with cathartic dissections of modern living. With Glass, the band continues to unravel themes of privilege, consumerism, individualism, and community. Yet, they manage to make their music feel relatable rather than preachy, positioning themselves as searchers earnestly attempting to navigate a late capitalist moment defined by isolation and alienation.

Today, they’re accompanying the record’s release with a new video for one of its highlights, “In the Glass Shell,” premiering with Under the Radar.

At its core, “In the Glass Shell” is about the tendency for technology and consumer culture to turn us inward, isolating us from real-life community as we get sucked into a vortex of cheap dopamine fixes. However, Buddie balances out that weighty commentary with waves of power pop guitars and hooky melodies, conjuring up the easy and infectious charms of bands like Weezer or Fountains of Wayne. Forrest’s lyrics tumble out atop satisfyingly fuzzy layers of distortion, jumping between plaintive guitar strums and an irresistibly catchy chorus. In true Buddie fashion, the results are at once melodic, heartfelt, and thoughtful. Meanwhile, the accompanying video hits on many of the same themes, following as Forrest obsessively constructs a glass bowl diorama before losing himself inside a surrealist animated scene.

Buddie says of the track, “One-click purchases on Amazon, DoorDash delivery foods, binge-streaming a show, doomscrolling. These things have an immense gravity when we decompress from working long hours in precarious employment like gig work, or getting incredibly anxious about another war on the horizon. But all of these activities mostly serve to meet immediate needs and pleasures, and leave us sapped of dopamine. They can drive us further from building deep and lasting relationships in real communities. And they further entrench the hold that companies like Amazon, Uber, Disney, and Spotify have on our lives. ‘In the Glass Shell’ is about this overwhelming wave of consumerism, individualism, and ‘self-care’ culture.”

Check out the song and video below. Glass is out everywhere now via Crafted Sounds.